One of my favorite things to cook with our chocolate is chocolate torte. It’s fantastic by itself or with ice cream. This is one of my favorite recipes for torte. I honestly have no idea who originally gave me this recipe. It’s been on 3×4 cards for quite some time. For those of you not familiar with torte it is a cake which has no flour in it.

Here’s the recipe:

3/4 cup unsalted butter cut in to pieces
340g Amano Ocumare 70% dark chocolate, chopped (around 12 oz or 6 bars)
5 large eggs
1 cup sugar
1.5 tsp vanilla
.25 tsp salt
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

Put the chopped chocolate in a pan over a pan of simmering water. (A double boiler) Slowly melt it. Add the butter to melt and mix with the chocolate. After it is mixed remove from heat and allow it to cool slightly.

Turn the oven to 300 F with the rack prepared in the middle. If your oven heats unevenly think about putting a heating stone in the lower rack. Take a 9×2″ round cake pan and line the bottom with parchment paper. (Just cut the paper in the shape of the pan bottom) Butter the paper and sides of the pan. Dust with cocoa powder, removing any excess.

In a mixer combine the eggs, sugar, vanilla, salt and then 2 Tbs of water. Beat it on medium high until it has about doubled in volume and is foamy. Reduce the speed to low and gradually add the chocolate mixture. Increase the speed back to medium high until everything is well blended. Add the cocoa powder on low until it is just barely blended.

Pour the mixture into the cake pan and place in the middle rack. Cook about 40 – 45 minutes or until a tooth pick comes out slightly wet with gooey clumps. The danger with this cake is in over cooking as it will be very dry and unappetizing if over cooked.

When done run a knife around the edges of the pan and then flip the pan over on a wire rack. Remove the parchment paper. Put on a cake pan and cover in your refrigerator for at least 6 – 8 hours or until very cold.

I often glaze the cake with some home made ganache (sometimes with a different variety of chocolate like our Madagascar). I also sometimes just do a chocolate and butter glaze. I’ve also had it with a mascarpone topping. (1/2 lb mascarpone chees, 3/4 cup heavy cream, 1/2 tsp vanilla all whipped in a blender)

As I mentioned, if you over cook the torte it will be very dry — the opposite of what a torte is supposed to be like. If you ruin the torte, don’t worry. It is still fantastic with ice cream.